


Smile

by fansofcollisions



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Pre-Portal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5873632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fansofcollisions/pseuds/fansofcollisions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It really never struck him as strange, the absence of pictures in Ford’s house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile

Fiddleford wasn’t much of a family man himself. Two sisters, both married young and off somewhere on the coast. Mother and father dead too young, and not much love lost in the- well, the loss.

Still, he kept photos in his wallet, of nephews he’d never met and his parent’s wedding and the painfully staged graduation stills his mother had insisted upon. He didn’t plaster them across the walls, but it was a soothing reminder of past happiness, something to vaguely acknowledge every time he reached for change to buy a Cola or a book of matches.

It really never struck him as strange, the absence of pictures in Ford’s house. Ford was ever the forward thinker. He had never seemed the type for nostalgia. Which is why it took him aback when there the photographs were: a whole boxful of them stuffed beneath a dirty tarp in the basement. Some were in albums, others loose and bent and clogging the crevasses between books. There were staged scenes featuring an austere father, a bedazzled mother, various small children that he surmised to be cousins or friends - though the former seemed more likely.

And picture after picture of a five-fingered Ford, mop of dirty hair falling over the scratches above his eyes, one too many bruises to be explained away by youthful clumsiness. No graduation photos in sight.

He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. He dragged the box from its hiding spot and pulled the pictures out one by one. For every photo of his parents, there were three of Ford and his mysterious double. Matching tuxes, hammers and nails, slicked hair and ice cream cones. Happy, happy, happy. Nothing but smiles.

He’d stopped trusting Ford’s smile a long time ago.

When he heard the creak of footsteps on the eave, he debated trying to hide the evidence of what he’d seen. Evidentially he didn’t leave himself long enough to debate, because Ford’s shadow fell across the ground by his crossed legs before he’d stuffed even half the photos back into the box.

Ford knelt beside him. A quick check: his eyes were steady. Fiddleford let out a breath, a barely repressed flinch.

“I’d forgotten about these…” There was a flicker of something almost like warmth in his eyes as he fingered a black and white still of a boat, two boys with swinging legs hanging off its bow.

The apology died on his lips as Fiddleford watched his friend flip through one of the albums. They shared the moment quietly. Ford lingered on one photo in particular, finally sliding it from its plastic covering. He tried to peer over his shoulder to see what it was, but Ford stiffened and Fiddleford fell back.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, but Ford didn’t seem to hear him. His eyes, lively only a moment ago, fixed on a spot on the wall and remained unwaveringly there, suddenly cold.  Slowly, his fist tightened around the photo in his hand until it crumpled. Fiddleford only caught a glimpse of two matching faces before it disappeared between clenching fingers.

“Agreed,” Ford replied to an unheard suggestion, and the floor was clear of any past reminders, and the box was closed, and Ford was gone. He didn’t look at Fiddleford as he left, and Fiddleford didn’t try to catch his attention.

Two days later, over breakfast he finally managed to find a way to phrase the question that didn’t seem too inquisitive, too accusative, too _anything_ but casually interested.

“I burned them out back. Pass the coffee, will you?”

He did, and Ford grinned in thanks, and in Fiddleford’s mind he saw the boy from the photographs. Happy, happy, happy.

He’d never been so certain that the smile that met his across the kitchen table wasn’t Ford’s.


End file.
